At least for now, President Donald Trump is not publicly attacking former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ bid to return to his old Alabama Senate seat.
Trump has consistently bashed Sessions’ performance as attorney general, both while he was still on the job and after his forced resignation.
Speaking with reporters outside the White House on Friday, Trump was asked if he will campaign against Sessions. The president indicated that at this point he does not plan on speaking out against Sessions’ candidacy but left wiggle room for that to change moving forward.
“No, I won’t,” Trump said when asked. “I’ll see how it all goes.”
“You have some very good candidates,” he added. “Look, Alabama is a place where my approval numbers are very good. … I love Alabama. I’m going to go watch a very good football game (in Tuscaloosa) on Saturday. … It’s going to be great.”
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump continued, moving back to the Sessions topic. “He’s got tough competition. I mean, you have the football coach. Tommy is doing very well. You have some good people running in Alabama. Let’s see what happens.”
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This comes after Donald Trump, Jr. last week on “The Jeff Poor Show” said, “I think you have a couple of people that could do a really good job (who are running in the GOP primary).”
Warning against the danger of nominating former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore again, the younger Trump added, “So, you know between Bradley [Byrne] and those guys (non-Moore candidates) — you have great options, guys that will do a great job there. And I think it’s a no-brainer. We have got to get them in there initially.”
The GOP Senate primary consists of a crowded field of competitive candidates, including Tuberville, Byrne, Moore, Secretary of State John Merrill, State Rep. Arnold Mooney (R-Indian Springs) and now Sessions.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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